1 Times Beach Is Enough

April 1, 1985

Remember what happened at Times Beach, Mo.? In the early '70s, a waste hauler unknowingly sprayed oil contaminated with the deadly chemical dioxin on the town's unpaved roads to control dust. Well, something similar could be happening now.

A congressional study released last week shows that chemical plants are venting large amounts of dangerous chemicals into the air even though no one knows whether those chemicals are hazardous. That has to change: The federal Environmental Protection Agency needs to find out just how dangerous these chemicals are and set minimum pollution control standards to regulate them.

The current system of regulating toxic airborne chemicals is inadequate. No one knows enough about most of these chemicals to be able to set even minimum pollution control standards. Though chemical plants release more than 200 toxic pollutants into the atmosphere, the EPA has set national standards of emission control on only 5 of them. And the states, which have the primary responsiblity for regulating airborne pollutants, haven't done much better. Some states regulate far more toxic air pollutants than the federal government, but they have set widely different standards.

EPA officials claim that they are doing all they can to solve the problem. That's hard to believe. Sure, the EPA is expected to hand down minimum standards limiting the release of about 20 toxic airborne chemicals by the end of this year. And yes, EPA officials are right when they say it is difficult and time consuming to try to determine at what level a dangerous chemical becomes a health hazard. But the EPA has not shown a commitment to handling the problem. Indeed, it has taken almost a decade for the EPA finally to get to the point of regulating those 20 chemicals. That's ridiculous. Meanwhile, the number of dangerous pollutants has continued to multiply.

It's time for the EPA to take steps to reduce those toxic pollutants. Doing that could prevent another Times Beach, or something far worse.